Peskov doesn't confirm Putin's meeting with Russian Accounts Chamber head Kudrin on Nov 24

MOSCOW. Nov 25 (Interfax) - Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov has not confirmed media reports that President Vladimir Putin held a meeting with Russian Accounts Chamber head Alexei Kudrin on Thursday.

"I cannot confirm it. I have nothing more to add to what I have already said," Peskov told reporters in response to the relevant question.

Media reports on Putin's November 24 meeting with Kudrin started to appear back on Wednesday. Peskov said in reply to a question from Interfax the same day that he was not aware of preparations for such a meeting. The presidential press secretary also gave the same answer to this question as of midday on Thursday. However, a number of Telegram channels said on Friday morning that this meeting had taken place nonetheless.

According to The Bell media outlet, Putin and Kudrin agreed at this meeting on the restructuring of the Yandex business. In particular, Kudrin will step down as Accounts Chamber head and will take a job with this Internet company, heading up a new structure, which will also include the company's top management. Furthermore, Kudrin will receive a 5% stake in Yandex. Vladimir Potanin's companies may become new Yandex shareholders as well.

Yandex co-founder Arkady Volozh, for his part, will be able to focus on developing the businesses of drones, education, cloud services, and crowdsourcing (Yandex Toloka) abroad, The Bell said.